There is an increasing use of light railways in city streets. Conventionally such rails are installed by extensive excavation of the roadway and then installing rails with a downwardly extending I-section resting on sleepers. In practice the roadway would be excavated to a depth of 50 centimeters to provide for a 18 centimeter deep sleeper or bed of concrete. This type of rail is commonly called a Phonenix rail. Such a deep excavation entails re-routing underground services such as water and electricity mains and destroys the integrity of the road construction. Some attempts have been made to reduce the amount of excavation needed. For example in Dresden in the late `50's, a conventional phoenix rail was cast in concrete panels about 20 centimeters deep but this was not practical since it involved short lengths of rail having to be welded together. Dr. Zahummensky in Budapest tried shallow rails inserted in steel-lined channels in 18 centimeters deep concrete panels (the rails being 7 centimeters deep). A snag with such panel systems is that the panels tend to settle or rock although in the Dresden system this was resisted by the rigidity of the rail, which was of phoenix type. A rail similar to that tried in Budapest is shown in German (East) Patent Specification 247 716 for use especially on bridges. A snag with the construction of this Specificaiton is that the rail is supported resiliently from below and thus the loading is not taken from the stronger denser road surface but this surface has to be cut away and the loading taken from a lower weaker substrate surface. Such shallow rails are more flexible and so the rail when subject to wheel loading will give and this will increase the traction force needed. In International Patent Publication WO 84/00391 there is described a phoenix-like rail consisting of an I-beam with a small foot and a large head providing flanges; the flanges provided by the head take some of the loading on the rail. The rail is inserted into a trench to rest on a substrate and then the road is built up around the rail without however the filling material of crushed stone being able to be compacted by road rollers. The flanges rest on a layer of bitumen at best which is forces in to fill the gap left between the flanges and the filling material; bitumen is not a material which is good at taking loading but merely a material which binds stone to give a load-bearing substance. This Specification appears to be a near miss for the present invention as it suggests that it provides the reduced excavation, eliminates the need (or at least reduces the need) for deeply buried sleepers, and takes the wheel loading on the flanges on the surface of the roadway but in practice does not do so.